Video 5:44
WA leads the force in tackling bushfires

A study by local scientists is hoping to show Western Australia's policy of deliberate burning can alleviate risk of wildfires without harming its biodiversity.

Transcript

The findings of Victoria's bushfires Royal Commission will be landed down tomorrow and they're likely to recommend major changes to the State's prescribed burns policy.

Western Australia's policy is considered a world leader, yet green groups remain sceptical about its effects on biodiversity.

But a group of local scientists are part way through a study, which they hope will prove those groups wrong.

Danielle Parry reports from the south west forests.

NARRATOR (old footage): In century heat, the battle went on, a battle stretching into days as men fought to save their farms.

DANIELLE PARRY, REPORTER: The hot, dry summer of 1961 saw bushfire rage through the town of Dwellingup, south east of Perth, destroying everything in its wake.

NARRATOR (old footage): In the morning, a town had died.

DANIELLE PARRY: Years of drought and huge stockpiles of fuel made the blaze unstoppable. Authorities had no choice but to change their tactics.

NEIL BURROWS, WA DEPT ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION: We realised at that point that prescribed burning was fundamental to managing the impacts of wild fires.

It doesn't prevent wild fires, but it certainly reduces their impacts.

DANIELLE PARRY: It's a view that's dominated fire policy in the West for half a century.

In the past year more than a million hectares of bushland has been deliberately burnt across WA, more than 200,000 hectares of it in the State's south west.

NEIL BURROWS: In Western Australia we've learned that we need to prescribe burn around 8 to 10 per cent of the landscape each year.

DANIELLE PARRY: Since prescribed burning was intensified in WA, authorities say there have been no forest fires greater than 30,000 hectares, no one has been killed and there's been only one case of multiple property losses.

But the Conservation Council believes an over emphasis on meeting burn quotas is damaging native flora and fauna.

PIERS VERSTEGEN, WA CONSERVATION COUNCIL: In Western Australia really, we've got a whole range of threatened species that rely on forest ecosystems particularly, and one of the drivers behind the increasing threat to those threatened species is prescribed burning.

DANIELLE PARRY: WA's south west forests are an internationally recognised biodiversity hot spot but they're also among the most fire prone environments in the country, creating a conundrum for land managers.

These scientists are trialling a technique they think could reduce the risk of intense wild fires here, at the same time as enhancing biodiversity.

PAUL VAN HEURCK, WA DEPT ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION: Well the goal of mosaic project is actually to create as much variety or ranges of fire ages from very long unburnt patches to very recently burnt patches.

DANIELLE PARRY: Fine grain mosaic burning involves setting frequent, small, low intensity fires to create patches of different aged habitats that can sustain a wider range of plants and animals. This type of controlled burn is time consuming and relies on great coordination between staff in the air and on the ground.

PETER KEPPEL, DEC REGIONAL MANAGER: Mosaic burning is more complex and more risky than just carrying out a straight forward prescribed burn of a large block because we need to go in there and light the area a number of times and we always have the risk of re-ignition.

DANIELLE PARRY: Scientists ultimately hope to track the effect on plants, animals and insects in these study plots for 20 years.

But seven years in the environment is already responding.

NEIL BURROWS: In the area that we are treating with these small patchy fires we're finding almost double the insect diversity.

The fungi are responding similar to the insects.

DANIELLE PARRY: It's this kind of research that's made the rest of the world sit up and take notice of WA's experience.

PHIL CHENEY, EXPERT PANEL, BUSHFIRES ROYAL COMMISSION: They have gone about the task of understanding fire behaviour in their forests in a very systematic way. I would say they'd have the best understanding of anybody in the world, about management of fire in the forest environment.

PHIL CHENEY: It's the only finding that they can come down with that will make any significant impact in the future.

DANIELLE PARRY: The royal commission is considering whether Victoria's prescribed burning rate should increase from less than 3 per cent to between 5 and 10 per cent of available public land.

The Department of Sustainability and Environment declined to speak to the ABC because the commission's findings are still pending.

But not everyone thinks a target similar to Western Australia's is achievable or desirable.

PROF NEAL ENRIGHT, PLANT ECOLOGY, MURDOCH UNIVERSITY: There are a lot of issues in terms of the capacity of government to deliver that sort of a percentage fuel reduction burning program in Victoria in terms of the human resources, the equipment resources, and another major factor which is the time resources available for fuel reduction burning.

PIERS VERSTEGEN: We wouldn't want to be holding up the Western Australian example as the best way of doing prescribed burning because we do know that prescribed burning in Western Australia is having an impact on our ecosystems and our environments.

DANIELLE PARRY: The Black Saturday royal commission's recommendations are being released this weekend, but West Australian authorities believe the message from their research is clear.

NEIL BURROWS: The choice is either we, we manage fire or we prescribe burn or wildfires will take control of the situation for you.